Photography Tips for Amateur Photographers

After I wrote my hub Moving on From Rejection I decided that being an Amateur Photography myself, I would share some links and tips I have learnt to help make photography alittle better. I know I have a lot to learn, and by no means am I trying to convince anyone differently, but having some fresh little tips could come in handy; you just never know.

The picture I posted "Pink Flower" was rejected several times. Today I can understand why, but not when it was first rejected. To an amateur photographer who is just learning about technical aspect of photography it may not look right, but what are the problems? This picture was rejected because of lighting and composition. Okay, I understand what those words mean, but how do they relate to photography?

I was reading at a site a few days ago that mentioned "composition" really is not something that you are taught, it is how we see things within our own creativity. Once you get a general understanding of how composition is related to photography, you will use those basics and apply your own creativity and soon you will begin or enhance your photography in many ways.

There are five elements of composition in Photography: Pattern, Symmetry, Texture, Depth and lines. I personally love working with Diagonal Shots (although, I did not know that until a few days ago.) As I was looking through some of my photos, I noticed I had taken several pictures where the subject was placed in the photo in a Diagonal position.

I believe the video that I added will give you a pretty good explanation about composition in photography. One of the most important things is to always remember, that what each one of use see out of the lens of our camera is different. And once we pull that into reality or the picture, it is a piece of art we have created. Even doing regular artwork such as painting, we must follow some rules to get the effects we want in our paintings. Learning the basic of composition in photography is the same as learning what brush to use on certain objects in our paintings.

I have to admit something here, I am very much a "hands on" type of person when it comes to learning something. I can read about the topic and somehow it just does not sit like actually doing it. When I watched this video, it took me a couple of different tries, but once I got a hold of what he was talking about, it is amazing what this technique can do.

I followed the directions in the video on Boosting Colors and re cropped the picture (now that I am looking at it I think the composition may be wrong-not sure) and this is the how the picture came out. It looks brighter and crisper to me. I like it, it may be wrong, but as I have mentioned before we all see through our own eyes.

From my understanding, lighting is one of the hardest things to get correct in pictures. There are four basic techniques you need to be aware of:

-Back lighting which means the light that is coming from behind the subject of the picture.

-Side Lighting which can create darkness on either the left hand or right hand side of your picture

-Diffused Lighting: Often ligh can be too harsh in all directions of your subject

-Artifical Lighting: that comes from using your flash on your camera

I have a ton of photos that I took and keep in a folder called (keepers for experiments) they are pictures that are so-so but not good enough to post or sell, so I will be playing with those pictures until I get this lighting and composition correct.